If Sarah were to make one observation while they progressed into the Dungeon, it was that Miriam looked as smug as a child who had tricked their way into a second helping of dessert at the family picnic - and for good reason. After the third successful arrow was enchanted to be stronger than it was built to be, The Enchanter could say she had a reliable enchantment that would not only be useful for their towns construction, but also on their own gear. At her request, she’d strengthened Sarah’s staff, though the enchantment wasn’t free in terms of MP - rather, each enchanting took up about half of her total reserve, so she only was able to perform them right before they took a rest.
Miriam had hoped aloud that her second class would give her some efficiency as well, and as she was level 8 in her Enchanter class it wouldn’t be too long until she found out. As it was they were heading deeper into the dungeon, and so she focussed more on where she was than where she wanted to be. Unfortunately, that was quickly becoming boring to her. With Sarah’s hand at her elbow to guide her, she dropped back into her mental model and began experimenting with adding different aspects to the Mana Dart. If the carps were weak to fire, she wanted some sort of fire bolt to work with.
The rest of the party stopped short and Sarah gasped as she realized the scale at which the mine room had expanded. She pulled back on Miriam’s elbow harshly. Almost a half kilometer across a deep, open quarry pit sat a pair of decorated stone doors, guarded by the first fires she’d seen the whole dive - an entire platoon of twenty Minors, all lead by a pair of Majors and another smaller ant that the other fires moved in deference to.
She pushed for the group to take cover and they did, quietly and quickly. A tense moment passed as Sarah watched the steady stream of carp miners carry their loads to the door, where a small pile was beginning to form. The orbs of liquid food almost looked like a pyramid of little white golf balls at this distance.
“Is that the queen?” George asked in a hushed voice, crouching low to the ground. The tunnel they were approaching from was unlit, so the scattered light of the crystals embedded in the ceiling failed to reveal them.
“No.” Sarah whispered back. “No crown. Must be a new type.”
“A new mob?” Ezekiel asked. “Good to know. That’s valuable info.”
Sarah turned back and did her best to keep her incredulity quiet. “Good? It’s bad. That means we have no idea how strong the queen will be. That means we have no idea if the carps will help us out.”
“Not good for us, just good info.” The Archer clarified. “It means the dungeon scales to us, and isn’t a set level. That, or it has growth, and this new mob is the result of that growth. It means we won’t need to range further and further out for levels, because I don’t know about you guys, but this place is handing out xp like candy on Hallowe’en.”
“Yep. I got a new skill from pretty much the first engagement, and I’m close to another.” Jack chimed in, more and more becoming comfortable with the idea of fighting without the Legion.
Sarah looked over her shoulder, staying behind her cover. “And you didn’t think to tell anyone about that?”
Jack shrugged. “It just boosts my effectiveness with my shield against weapon attacks. The ants don’t have weapons, so…” The Optio trailed off.
Sarah sighed. “Fair enough. We’ve been telling each other all of our gains, though, just in case. Please stick to that moving forward.”
Jack gave his best version of a Legion salute he could while prone. “Aye, ma’am.”
“Is this where you allied with the carps last time?” Miriam asked, her focus on the situation in a rare display outside of actual combat.
“I didn’t do anything, it was your mentally ill boyfriend.” Sarah retorted.
“Hey.” Miriam snapped, her voice harsh even through the whisper. “That’s not fair.”
“It kind of is.” George responded with a wave of his hand. “Dude went out on a suicide run. Just because he actually came back doesn’t make the initial decision any less terrible or sound. He seems to have it together now, but still…”
“Do I want to know?” Kyla asked hesitantly.
Miriam huffed. “Fine. For all who don’t know, Mitchell lost a good portion of his arm in the starting moments of the tutorial when we had to go up against a Spinebear. For some reason, he decided the best response to that was running out into the wilds to level up. Sarah followed him, they found this dungeon, he got a class, and came back with his hand regrown. That’s the whole story.”
Kyla and Ezekiel looked at each other, then back to the Acolyte. Ezekiel spoke first. “So you’re telling me that your leader-guy did this dungeon with one hand? With only a Healer for backup?”
Sarah fought to keep her jaw from dropping. “Yes, but-”
“That’s pretty metal, you know. Like, I get that you all were there, but hearing about it after?” Kyla looked almost uncomfortable at the stares being levied her way. “What? It is.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and went back to observing. “Glad you think he’s ‘metal’.”
George suppressed a snicker, and Sarah whipped her head around. “What’s so funny?”
“Metal. ‘Cause he wears plate.”
Sarah lowered her head into her hands. “Can we… Can we just keep going?”
George spoke up. “I think we’re waiting for you to tell us how you got with the carps.”
Her face flushed with embarrassment for the briefest moment. “Right. That. We just kind of… Uh…” Sweat broke out across her body as she came to a terrible realization.
She didn’t remember if Mitchell ever explained what he did, just that he had gone down, and the carps had helped her heal him. Beyond that, she’d been tired, hungry, and coping with rapid usage of her magic.
There was some missing action she hadn’t bothered to clarify, and now it would cost them.
----------------------------------------
Mitchell rubbed his temples with his hands, grateful that at least the weather was nice this morning. Another batch of Aspirants had shown up, and quickly highlighted a growing problem - Old Mill Town had no shortage of space, or places to produce goods, but the one thing they lacked was resources. Trees surrounded the village, ripe for lumber, but they had no way to process them into planks without John becoming a one-man factory.
The river was nearby, and Mitchell saw an enterprising woman casting a rod off the end of the new pier, though quick math showed this wouldn’t even be enough for a quarter of the villagers, even assuming she could catch a fish every hour. With George gone, hunting had ground to a halt, so even the watery soups they had made to feed people seemed out of reach.
With this morning's breakfast of oats - just oats - the town coffers were officially down to 10 paltry F-coins, and Mitchell had estimated that would cover around two more meals. The next morning, there would be nothing to feed the people. He’d adjusted his immigration settings as high as they would go, to ensure only one highly capable mouth arrived the next morning, but their population was already approaching one hundred and it was too little, too late.
Originally, he’d thought the Farm would take care of all of their food needs, but it was more complicated than that. From what the Farmers had told him - and the fact that Aspirants could gain non-combat classes after a day or two at their place of work was a definite boon - the field would grow in stages. Without any previous experience with anything System related, Mitchell had ordered the entire field seeded with potatoes.
This had turned out to be a mistake.
Other crops were as simple as planting the seed, then having the crop go through the stages. All crops had at least three - rooting, growing, flowering. Many had more, either before, in between, or after these stages, but those three always remained. However, potatoes were considered a five stage crop. They needed to be planted in the field in a certain way on day one, day two would be an idle day as the plants grew their roots, which was actually a separate stage. Day three would see the tubers forming above ground, and would be a ‘hilling’ stage, as the Farmers made small mounds of dirt to protect and support the tubers. Day four would see flowers, Day five would have the plants wilting and the root ready for digging up.
Mitchell had already watched the Farmers make their hills this morning, though it hadn’t taken them long to work the single acre of farmland that the Farm had come with. He had a feeling that with upgrades to buildings or the town itself, that area could increase, but it was equally likely he would just need to buy more farms.
Which brought him back to his current problem of lacking money. He knew they could sell things on the System Store, but with a quick experiment, he’d found that the exchange rate was absolutely horrendous. He’d bought himself an item worth a single F-coin, a bundle of twine, and tried to sell it back to the System Store, only to recoil when the sale price was a single percent of an F-coin. Wether that meant they were being scalped by paying 100 times more for their goods, or if the sale prices were just that low was irrelevant. At the end of the day, using the System Store for selling goods was a horrible idea for anyone.
So he got up and went to go see Tommen, his first Inner Member of the clan, who had equally given him hope and dashed it away.
“Looks like I could sell this for… well that’s no good! Only a half of a woody? I think not.” Tommen scoffed while shaking his head in dismay. “This must be some terrible twine indeed. Did you make it yourself?”
Mitchell grimaced. “No. I bought it.”
Tommen looked at the twine critically, then placed it back on the countertop of his market stall. “If you paid more than a single woody, you got ripped off.”
Mitchell blinked. “I’m sorry, woody?”
“Ah, I suppose I could call them F-grade currency if I wished, but that’s a mouthful when you’re trying to barter with people so I shortened it! Do you like it?” Tommen seemed very interested in his opinion, so despite the uncomfortable level of attention Mitchell nodded.
“It’s good. I suppose you’ve already got a name for the E-grades?”
“Once I figure out what they’re made of, which is my current goal! A few more sales, some shrewd tactics, and I’d be happy to let you be first to know when I accomplish such a majestic feat.”
Mitchell blinked once more. “Come again? Some more sales?”
Tommen looked abashed for the first time during the conversation. “Er.. Yes. It’s almost criminal, but given our lack of laws, I saw fit to go ahead with the plan. You see, our poor recovering Legionnaire-”
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Mitchell raised a hand to stop him. “Tommen, you are an Inner Member of our community. If I learn you’ve been ripping off our Clanmates, we’re going to be having some aggressive words.”
Tommen’s face paled and he backed up a step, holding his hands up to ward off the Page. “No, no! If anything, we’re scamming on their behalf! See, Aleks was finding things difficult and apparently he’s got some sort of Artist secondary class? So he came to me asking if the System sold any paints, or anything of the sort, and while they do sell something called an Artists Kit, it runs an entire E-grade coin to purchase, which is beyond our own means. However, being the shrewd and successful merchant I am, I found a roll of parchment for him!”
Mitchell quirked an eyebrow, but let the Merchant continue his story. “Alas, the poor man could not afford such a thing, however he assured me that The Master of Law and Order had approved the opening of a line of credit for wounded Legionnaires, and so I fronted the cost myself.”
“You seem a little happy for having given something away for free.” Mitchell responded.
“Oh, no, not free! On credit my good sir, a credit which has already proven lucrative. If this poor Merchant's eyes are correct, I believe the man himself is on his way back. Hail, Tiros! How has this morning's endeavor gone?”
Aleks had seen Mitchell standing there and had looked like he would pivot and walk away, but steeled himself at the Merchant’s greeting and had strode over gripping a sheaf of ragged parchment scraps in his off hand. “Hail, Patriarch.” The man responded, dipping his head in respect.
“None of that, now. How have you been Aleks? I admit I was hoping to spend more time with you after your injury, but I see you have it well in hand.” Mitchell said, gesturing to the surprisingly well crafted crutch under his arm. His pants still hung low, but there was notably only one boot coming out from the bottom. Where his other foot should have been was noticeably absent a shoe, the pant leg cuffed to prevent the clothing from flapping around his stump where the leg used to be.
“The Centurion crafted it himself last night. So far it’s good, but my armpit is starting to feel a bit raw, sir.”
Mitchell smiled at the man's attitude. “Good to hear! We’ll have Sarah take a peek when she gets back, though I expect if you added a bit of padding to the top, it’d be more comfortable.”
“That’s actually what I’m doing now, sir.” Almost protectively, Aleks deposited the sheaf of parchment onto the counter, and Tommen’s eyes immediately snapped to the dirty papers.
Mitchell looked down, and saw the rounded lines of a face before Tommen whisked the lot of them off the counter and placed them on a shelf below. “Same deal, oh great artist of Old Mill Town?”
“Same deal, my shrewd friend.”
Tommen slid a few wooden tokens across the counter, and Aleks pushed one of them back across. “Ah, with that you are paid off in full. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to purchase something else with the Core groups generous donation of credit?”
Aleks whipped his head to stare at Mitchell, then back to Tommen, then made a few more double-takes before dipping his head. “Aleks, meet the bottom of a bus, I guess. Sorry, Patriarch, I just… I needed to occupy my mind somehow.”
Mitchell looked down at the Tiros, various ideas flitting through his mind but one being the most prominent. “Report to your Centurion, and work with him until I arrive to discuss this. In the future, however, if you ever make any agreements on behalf of the Core Group, you will be busted down to Aspirant so quickly you might as well keep walking once you’re out of those walls. Do I make myself clear?”
Aleks stiffened, sweat starting to become apparent on his face. “Yes, Patriarch! Right away!” The man looked pained for a second, before leaning his crutch on the market stall and shuffling his way into a salute before grabbing the wooden implement and hobbling off.
Tommen waited until he was out of hearing distance before speaking up. “You know, he’s a pretty good artist. I’ve already made around 300 F-grade coins off his a-”
Mitchell whipped his head around to stare at the Merchant with an almost manic look to his eyes. “Three hundred? How many has he made?!”
“Erm… around seven, counting these three. You did say I didn’t need to tax purchases, but the one percent should have given you three woodies at least.” Tommen explained shiftily.
“And those are where?” Mitchell prodded.
Tommen sighed and pulled a small, locked box out from under his stall. Pulling out an ornate key which was attached to a length of suspiciously familiar twine around his neck, Tommen opened the box and turned it around for Mitchell to see. Sure enough, three small wooden disks rested inside the box. “I was going to wait until he was done today then let you know how well our art seems to be doing on the System Store. Three coins just isn’t much to get excited about.”
Mitchell grabbed the coins, then stepped around the stall and dragged Tommen into a hug. “You beautiful man! You just ensured we have breakfast tomorrow!”
A hand clapped over his mouth. “And if you want anyone around for breakfast the next day, you’ll never say that out loud again.” John’s voice said coldly from behind him. “Now explain why you’re disciplining my Legionnaire.”
Mitchell froze, and stayed frozen Tommen extracted himself from the Page’s embrace, dusting off his outfit.
“Centurion, plea-” Aleks’ voice also came from behind him, and Mitchell’s options changed drastically. He didn’t mind Tommen seeing past the mask a little bit as an Inner Member, but to bring the man himself was poor form. However, he could see how it would be necessary from John’s point of view - they had to know that their commander would go to bat for them, even against the Patriarch of the village.
“Quiet, Tiros. The Core Members are speaking. Patriarch?” John prodded with no small amount of testiness.
“Aleks, tell the Centurion what you did.” Mitchell said as he turned and met John’s gaze. There was some small ember there, but not the fire he’d expected.
“Centurion, sir! I deceitfully informed Mr. Tommen of the creation of a casualty credit fund, sir!” Aleks reported.
John tilted his head. “Why did you do this, Tiros?”
“Sir! The Aspirants are making rumours that we will run out of money and food, sir! I wanted to do my part for Old Mill Town!”
John whirled about on his soldier. “And tell me, how does that translate to scamming a member of our community?”
Aleks gulped. “Sir! I… well…”
“Do you know what I think, Tiros?” John began, but he didn’t allow Aleks to respond. “I think you needed something to do, to take your mind off both your injury and the loss of a comrade. I think you believed I would disparage you for this, and so went around me to lie and cheat your way into what you wanted. Tell me, Tiros, which of those two things do you think that I am the most upset about?”
Aleks actually sat silent for a moment, thinking, then his posture deflated. “The second, sir.” Mitchell gestured to Tommen to bring the art out, to show John, but the Centurion was focussed.
“That would be correct. As a punishment, you are on decoration detail until I see fit! You will spend every single second of light creating art! That art will be judged, and if it is found wanting, I will hang it above your bed, so you can see your failure every night! I’m even willing to spend my own money on a candle, just so you can see it in the dark! You will bring each work to me, and I will determine if this art is worthy of your time. When you can go an entire day without producing crap like thi-” John looked down at the counter, and his voice caught. His hand whipped out and he grabbed the top sheet of parchment, holding it before his eyes, and his face went from stern to shocked.
Mitchell knew why. On that sheet of parchment was a dramatic charcoal depiction of a Legionnaire standing atop a pile of jagged, black and white corpses, gladius raised high and cape fluttering in the breeze. As John strode off towards the clan house with purpose, Mitchell and Aleks shared a glance.
One did not have to look at the parchment too hard to see the visage of Gunther.
----------------------------------------
“This is less complicated anyways!” Jack shouted from his spot at the front of the formation, which was dangerously close to the cliffs face. Given the quarry-style pit, though, they had no choice if they wanted to bottleneck the ramps up to what they were considering the ground floor. He had two carp minors pressing up against the shield, but his Strength was enough to keep them at bay.
“I said sorry!” George shouted out, then cursed as he rolled away from a blast of fire. Nimbus was much less graceful in scrambling away, clawing his way up to George’s shoulders and hissing at the Fire Ant Major as it spewed flames up the ramp at them.
“Less talk, more fight!” Kyla called them into focus from beside Jack, her spear lashing out lightning quick to pierce into chitin, eye, and mouth alike. With her wooden shield and the fire ants, she’d turned to using her spear with two hands, and its power and speed could not be denied.
Unfortunately for them, the carps were attacking in tandem with the fires after George had shot at one of the fires from across the room. With a half kilo of distance, it was inevitable that some drift would occur, as even caves had minute wind and drafts in them. In a stroke of bad luck, the arrow had sunk down into the neck of one of the carp workers carrying food, and that had seemed to set the entire anthill into a murderous rage.
There were hundreds of them, and each and every one of them was out for human blood. Sarah could see it all easily from where she stood. Her job was fairly easy - look out for injuries, bop with the staff, cast a few spells rinse, repeat. So she spent her extra time trying to plan. “Miri! Give me a Lightning Totem on the ramp up!”
A gleam flashing in Miriam’s eyes and soon the extensive set of arrays were popping up in the air, one after another in a cascade that still ended up taking two whole seconds to completely form before the multiple layers smashed together into one whole, and the spark shot outwards to plant itself halfway between the ground floor and the next one down, right in the middle of the ramp. With a fizzle…. Nothing happened.
“What the fuck?!” Miriam yelled. “You can’t just take my mana and not give me a spell! Broken ass-” Sarah tuned out her friend's curse laden tirade as her mind swam with all of the possibilities. Was it due to the low ceiling? Did they need to be outside? It didn’t ultimately matter, it just mattered that the Lightning Totem was out of the picture. As she watched, Miriam unleashed a Lightning Chain, frying three more of their assailants in her frustration.
It was as a drop in a bucket.
By that point, at least a hundred giant ants had emerged from the tunnels below and more poured out every second. Sarah knew they weren’t getting through to the queens; It was taking almost all they had to even hold back the tide of writhing chitin. A Major even managed to break through, heavily injured, and met a spray of sticky, flaming liquid that shot from her Chitinscald Gauntlet. The armour gave her a combat option but given it only had a range of about 15 feet, she wouldn’t be emulating Miriam’s steady streams of darts any time soon.
To her right, the open path to the cave they’d entered from loomed large in her mind. To her left, Ezekiel and George were rapid-firing arrow after arrow into the crowd. In front, Jack and Kyla stood and did their best to keep the overwhelming numbers back, and took steady minor injuries for their efforts. Sarah’s MP hadn’t been above half for the majority of the battle, each point being spent as soon as she could without draining herself too low that she fell unconscious. It was a balancing act, as her spells didn’t have flat costs associated with them - it depended on the severity of the injury and the size of mass she affected.
For his part, Jack had broken through to the tenth level near the start of the battle, and his new Shield Brother skill seemed to give him a boost to attack when he targeted a creature that was attacking one of his allies. It made for an odd sight, to see Kyla and Jack working together to attack each other’s assailant, but Kyla had quickly realized they would be more effective that way, and she’d been right. The basic intelligence of the ant workers wouldn’t allow them to realize the concept of a battle line, and so they died in droves without ever seeing what killed them.
It wasn’t enough.
What really sealed the nail in the coffin - and Sarah did have the decency to wince as she thought that phrase - was when Miriam had finally decided she had enough of the darkness and the flickering shadows, and cast her Flare Gun spell in the middle of the cavern, revealing a flanking force of over a hundred ants making their way across the cavernous ceiling. Even as they watched, a few of them flinched at the sudden blinding light and lost their footing, tumbling down to the quarry floor below.
Where they promptly got up and rejoined the mass making their way up the ramps.
“We need to call it!” Sarah yelled out. “We aren’t getting through, not like this!”
“We hold the line!” Jack called back, though she could hear the tension in his voice. “Better to die fighting than tired!”
The Healer grit her teeth. ‘Why do all men need to be so dramatic about fighting?’
“She’s right.” Ezekiel said, his words making their way over the din of battle. “I’ll be out of mana for arrows soon. Nimbus is gaining no experience sitting back here. We should retreat, regroup, and come back later, when we’re stronger.”
George scoffed. “Worry about your own cat, buddy. Nimbus and I share battle experience. Besides, if we’re stronger, so is the dungeon. Might as well give up on it altogether!”
“We aren’t going to go powerlevel,” Ezekiel said with a tense exasperation. “I’m saying we head back to town, rest, and come back with a proper tank and tactician.”
“Are you talking about Mitchell? Or John?” Miriam asked in between castings.
“I don’t care, either of them!” Ezekiel yelled back, his emotion finally making its way into his words. “But if this were an MMO, we’re playing like a bunch of idiots trying to force character deaths! Am I the only one concerned that our whole plan was ‘blitz the dungeon’?”
Sarah’s worry finally had a form she could put thought to, and she made the call. “Fighting retreat! We fall back to the entrance in formation, and we’ll make our way out.” She had tested as soon as they had entered, and she was able to exit the dungeon now. She wasn’t sure if it was something about them, the dungeon, or the Tutorial that had changed, and frankly she didn’t care.
It was time to leave, and they actually could, so they would. It took them all of five minutes to fight their way to the tunnel. Not a single ant followed them out of the quarry zone as they made their way back to the entrance, and emerged out into a cloudy, moonless night. Faces were disappointed but relieved - their loot was paltry, but they were alive.
The group all but collapsed into their beds when they finally made the hours-long trek back home. The only positive thing that could be considered, George thought, was that with all this traffic, at least the trail home was getting easier to follow.